


The Burning Man

by hightechzombie



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Desolation!Tim, Fake Statement, M/M, Miraculous self-resurrection through sheer power of hatred
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-26
Updated: 2020-04-26
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:07:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23862037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hightechzombie/pseuds/hightechzombie
Summary: Statement of anonymous contributor regarding the Burning Man.Supplemental by Jonathan Sims, the Archivist of the Magnus Institute.
Relationships: Jonathan Sims/Tim Stoker
Comments: 2
Kudos: 38





	The Burning Man

Dear Archival Staff,

first of all, I’m sorry for all of this. This is the first letter I have ever sent in my life, with a stamp on the outside and a personal message inside. If it’s painful to read, then you must forgive me, because it was even more painful to write. Even the greeting line took far more time than it should, even with Professor Google at my beck and call. 

It must appear strange to you. I myself live and work in London, therefore it should be no big challenge to visit your Institute in person, especially since writing letters give me such trouble. But there is a reason for it. I gave a promise to the burning man. 

I doubt he would like me writing this letter either, but well… I felt I had to wrap this up somehow. No one among my friends would believe me if I told them, and even you might not believe my story. It would eat me up from inside if I carried this secret for my entire life.

Maybe I could even say… it would burn me up. 

(I know, I know, terrible joke.)

It all started with the tourist season, which is technically always happening, since we are living in London, but the summers are particularly popular since the schools are closed. I know that not everyone like this aspect of the capital, but I really can’t complain. Most of my customers are young people and tourists, who dig all the hipster stuff I sell. 

I don’t want to sound derogatory about what I sell, particularly since I put hard work into building this shop from the ground. But hipster stuff is the most accurate description. There are some fashion items, most of them pseudo-vintage, some novelty items, ironic shirts and postcards… Even when people don’t buy my items, they certainly enjoying gawking at them. 

It also helps that I have furnitured and refurbished the place myself. When you look inside the storefront, you see a whole different era. An era which likely never existed, a mix of Victorian wallpaper and furniture from American 60s. I know, it must sound tacky. But it looks good, I promise you that! I mean, people keep visiting it and buying things, even though I am not located directly in the tourism hot spots.

Still, it does mean that every person that passes by is an important customer and I can’t easily lose them. That’s why I was rather off-put when I saw someone blocking the view into my storefront. 

They must have set up their gig after I had opened the shop. From the looks of it, they were in the tourism business as well. The guy - I think it was a guy -, wore some fancy clothes, a wig and was covered in metallic makeup. You must have met these type of entertainers before. They pretend to be statues, many of them surprisingly realistic, and then startle people by breaking character. Give them a pound and they’ll gladly pose for a photo with you. 

So, I went out the door and kindly pointed out that they were blocking the view. I said that I would be grateful if they moved a few yards to the side. 

In the beginning, I had made sure to make eye contact and smileб as you do. Once the man had tilted his head, I had begun talking in earnest. Only several sentences later did I realize that the tilt was not really directed at me and that the statue man was not reacting to what I said.

His clothes were this hue of old bronze. It was this dark orange-brown, but in certain places it turned to turquoise green, particularly in the wrinkles that would be the hardest to polish. It was a very effective look that must have taken a lot of time to perfect. This perfection was also reflected in the man’s demeanor, who had taken to the role as a statue quite literally. 

His eyes were half-closed, eyelashes the same corroded green. I have tried raising my voice and received no reaction.

I have turned blunt, at that point. I pointed and commanded: “Move left.”

The statue moved. With mechanical abruptness, he moved to his left and therefore the opposite direction in which I was pointing. With that, he was effectively blocking my doorway. 

At the sight of such malicious compliance, I had almost lost the gift of speech. Taking a deep breath, I decided it was not worth it and commanded him to move to his right instead. 

The statue man made a single step, returning to his original position. I swear at that moment, I had heard the whirr of gears, even though I had not paid attention to the sound nor tried to decipher what it was. I continued to instruct him to move right until he was no longer obstructing my storefront. 

I considered thanking him or commenting on his behaviour in any other way, but decided against it. It is decidedly hard to treat someone as a person if they are insisting to act as if they aren’t one. Besides, it felt like he had pulled a weird power-move on me by refusing to talk like a person and I did not feel like I owed him much courtesy after that. 

Once I was inside, I had realized that I could still see the statue man from my counter. He had moved away just far enough to not be a direct nuisance, but I could still feel his presence. It was enough to irk me, but not enough to go out and make a scene.

I went through my store once and twice, stocking up gone items and cleaning up a here and there. Next I scrolled through social media on my phone for a bit, soon put the incident out of my mind. I’d like to think I’m anything but a petty person and that’s why I soon decided to drop the grudge against the “interloper”. With a fresh look, the statue guy was turning out to be another peculiarity in a city of peculiar people. Might make for a funny story to tell or even bring more publicity to my shop.

With that positive outlook, I nonetheless felt a little worried when I saw a passing family a family paying attention to the statue man. They did not really glance at my storefront, which is okay. Families made me nervous anyway, because my crammed shop did not handle many people at once well and one of their children looked like he was still in primary school. 

But I was keenly interested in their interaction, because the statue man had left a rather unpleasant impression on me. I did not wish for potential customers to be scared away because of his rudeness and decided to intervene if things went out of hand. 

I didn’t need to have worried. The statue man had twirled around his axis, the gasps of the tourists serving as praise for his act. His clothes were very heavy and did not move as clothes should, likely stiff from the oil and paint that had covered it.

Then the statue man took off his top hat, revealing bronze hair underneath. With a mechanical, yet oddly enthralling gesture, he stretched out the hat towards them. One by one, the family looked inside the top hat and took something from it. The smallest of them had to be lifted to peak inside, for the statue man made no attempts for adjust for the height differences between them. 

It seems that the family had thanked the statue for the gift and attempted to put some money inside the top hat, but the statue nonchalantly put the hat before they could do so. The man still tried to persuade the statue to accept the money, but it statue remained motionless. A little confused, the family eventually went on their way.

By that time, I had stepped close to the windows, just enough to the side to not be seen myself. I saw that the children examined something in their hands or made playful motions with it, like you would with a toy. But from that distance I did not see exactly what it was.

The rest of the day went by as normal. People came in, bought some things, I made small-talk and gave them their change. The statue man kept giving out gifts and refusing money. I had begun wondering the gifts kept coming from, because his top could not possibly have an endless supply of toys. Maybe he stocked up while no one was looking or just slipped a few more into every time he took it off?

Either way, it was all idle thoughts. I had made a photo of him through the window, sending it to my friend Ella, telling about this weird guy that had shown up today. Since my customers usually came in waves, I had plenty of time to look through social media or text my friends. 

In the evening, I closed up the shop and stepped outside. The sunny day had changed to overcast evening and I had pulled my jacket closer, worrying that it was going to rain.

When the statue man stepped towards me, I flinched hard. Almost screamed, even. By that time I had treated him almost like an impassive object and kind of forgotten about him, like you would forget about the existence of a lighting pole.

He had moved in an unnatural manner, making steps sideways and only once he came close to me, turning around his axis to face me. With the same trained motion as always, he lifted his top hat and stretched it out towards me.

“All the world is a chessboard,” the statue said. “Pick your piece.”

It was clearly a recording being played from somewhere, a distorted voice with a tinny echo. Maybe it was the only line the statue man had recorded, which would explain the repetitive nature of his behaviour. 

I was so taken aback by him, that it took me a moment what his words meant. Then, I looked inside the hat. There was something, but I could not determine in this twilight what exactly it was. That’s why I put my hand inside the hat and pulled out a figurine.

It was bronze and heavy, the same dull green corroding it at the edges, just as it did the statue man. It took me a few moments to recognize that in my hand lay a chess piece - the King.

My next decision might not make immediate sense. But you see, I have grasped inside only to see what these objects were. All the while I examined it, I held the small statuette at distance, not sure whether I wanted to keep it. 

That’s why when the statue man moved to withdraw his hat, I dropped the figure back inside. I immediately stepped back, startled by my rudeness. I stuttered some apologies, said I had to run and fled from the scene. 

I did not want to be impolite, but neither did I want to be in any way obliged to this strange man. I still wasn’t sure if his presence might cost me my business and whether it might be wiser to chase him away. Neither could I possibly repay him for the statuette, because he staunchly refused money. There were coins all around the pavement near him and he would not bend to pick them up, not even in the coming days.

Besides… I did not even like chess. I didn’t even know the rules. I might enjoy collecting faux-vintage knick-knack, but this chess piece had a weight to it that I did not like.

In the end, I spent the commute trying to shake off the unpleasant feelings the encounter had left behind. Once home, I cooked a quick meal and called Ella. We talked about her day, me glossing over the statue man, as I did not want to rehash today’s events. It was a nice evening and in the following day the whole incident seemed rather silly and inconsequential. 

The next days went by quickly and without anything out of order. I had an eye out for any peculiarities, but the statue man treated me as if I was not there and he kept out giving just the same. At this point, I was kind of wondering what his deal was. He couldn’t be possibly making money from this. Maybe he was a rich eccentric who enjoyed this type of stuff? Or maybe it was performance art. I even had the terrible idea that it was a Youtuber who was filming the whole deal. It would cast in me in a less than flattering light and be bad for business… but no, it was a rather far-fetched idea and I tried to give to put it out of my mind.

On one evening, something happened. I was ringing up a customer and making small-talk. When he left the shop, I heard a loud voice through the opened door. Once I looked outside, I saw a bedraggled woman screaming at the statue man. She did not like a homeless or like a drunk, but she acted like she was out of her mind. When the statue kept refusing to answer her, she tried to shake him. The statue man remained unyielding, and soon the lady let go of him and stumbled backwards with a look of fear on her face.

Next, the lady caught sight of me through the window. With new energy, she rushed inside my shop. I hastily fled behind the counter to have something between us. 

I can’t exactly recall everything that she shouted at me. She accused me of letting the “bastard” give out toys and lure children into danger. There were a lot more things, but I could not for the sake of my life understand what the ladies’ deal was. I tried explaining that I had nothing to do with the man and that he had just appeared one morning, but it did not seem to go through to her. Her face was bloated, as if she had been heavily crying. In fact, there were angry tears in her eyes as she accused me of something I had no idea about. 

In the end, I firmly interjected and said that if she had a problem with the performer outside, she should call the police take it up with him directly, and if she did not immediately leave the shop right now, I would be forced to call the police myself. 

Her face twisted in a mix between despair and hatred. She opened her purse and began throwing metal figurines on the counter. These were the same chess pieces that the statue man was giving out. 

“Keep them,” the woman said. “Keep them to yourself! We’re not chess pieces, dammit! You can’t do this to us!”

Then, the woman rushed out the door, leaving me confounded and upset. I sat down on a stool, staring at the chess pieces. There was a terrible feeling in my gut. I knew, I was likely overreacting, but in that moment I was completely sure that the statue man was to blame. I did not know what he had done exactly, but at the very least he had greatly upset a woman and made me a scapegoat.

I left the chess pieces on the counter and walked outside. I was determined to make the statue man leave, though in the heat of the moment I had not determined how exactly I would do that. I walked right up to the statue man and told him that he was no longer welcome and had to leave. He could perform anywhere else, London was a big city, but he could not do this here anymore because people were complaining. 

I don’t know why I thought that it would accomplish anything. I tried to reason, to plead until I eventually I realized that I was only causing a scene, likely looking just as pathetic as the woman had looked minutes before. 

Hit with the helplessness, I just stood there. I was so frustrated, I even considered hitting him or dragging him away, but I knew I wouldn’t be strong enough to do so. Besides, I was afraid of his reaction. The man was clearly unreasonable and malicious. So I stood there, unable to decide to what to do next.

That’s when the statue opened his eyes. It looked at me and faintly smiled. His eyes were bronze. It wasn’t make up. His iris was solid metal.

“The world is a chess-board,” said the statue with his fake echoing voice. “Your turn has begun.”

With that, he closed his eyes and was immobile once more.

I don’t know how I got back into the shop and I don’t know how I managed to lock it behind before leaving. I was a mess. I had mental breakdowns before, one of the reasons why I dropped out of university, but I had never experienced something like this. I was either hallucinating or… I had not considered the alternative. I fled home, because I couldn’t think of anything else to do. 

I was terrified. I felt like I was drifting and lucid at the same time. I was eating cereal for dinner and thinking how insane it was how clearly I could see everything in my bowl, but I could not see the shape of my future. I couldn’t come to terms whether I was going insane or the world itself was insane. 

I went to bed after midnight. I tossed and turned, at some point losing consciousness and slipping into a dream. 

In the dream, I saw a chessboard. It was my turn. 

I was playing as white. I had only five chess pieces to command. Distantly, I knew that I had started out with more, but they had slipped through my fingers. But it was alright. It was my turn and the enemy could not do a thing against me. 

I slaughtered my way through the black army, trying to find the king. But I kept messing up. As my pieces carved and carved through the enemy, every chess piece that I had thought to be the black king had turned out to be something else entirely. 

It was tiresome. Besides, the chess pieces seemed not always to understand my command. They would frequently overshoot or move in the wrong direction. It was maddening. I was growing to hate them more than the opposing side. They had flailing limbs, beating hearts and soft flesh, making them so messy and so hard to control. In contrast, the black soldier were made of solid bronze, constrained and dignified

I knew, I could eliminate the weakness of my pieces. I sensed at some point that I had a sixth chess figure, one I had put away. He could make my army perfect.

It was a rook. He wore a top hat and had dull green eyelashes. I set him on the chessboard and forced him to attack my units. But my commands were muddled. I was mixing up the fields and instead of approaching my units, he was retreating. I double-checked the fields before every command and still failed to give the correct instructions. The rook came closer and closer, until he was right next to me. 

I tried distancing myself away, but realized how constricted my movements were. I could only move one field at a time, because I was the king. But the rook could move farther. He had no trouble keeping up. 

“Is this what you want?” he asked me. 

I said, no, it wasn’t.

“You have to make up your mind,” he chastised me. 

I defended myself and said it was hard to think.

“It’s time you made your decision,” he said.

What decision, I asked.

“Too late,” he shook his head.

I woke up. It was almost nine in the morning and past time when I should have opened my shop. Sleep had done a reset on my emotions, therefore I felt none of yesterday’s dread. Only thing I felt was the shock of having overslept for the first time in two years. 

As I got on my feet, I heard something fall down on the floor with a clang. It was a bronze chess piece.

I spent the entire commute holding the figurine with clammy hands and trying to convince myself that I had taken a chess piece from the counter and just forgot about it. God knows, I was messed up the day before. I had accidentally put it near my bed and just forgot.

What I held in my hands was the king. I didn’t remember what chess pieces the woman had thrown on the counter. But it didn’t matter. I had recognized this one - it was the same piece offered to me on the first day. It was the king. It was  _ my _ chess piece. 

Nausea rolled over me and I was filled with formless terror. There were people everywhere crammed in the tube and I didn’t know if they were on my side or not. How do you know what colour their chess pieces are? Were they part of the enemy army or part of mine? I was the king and therefore the main target. 

I left the tube a station too early, because I didn't like the way a man looked at me. He wore black sunglasses, but I was sure I felt his gaze on me. I walked to my shop, hoping to shake off my terror and to return a sense of normality.

These hopes were shattered as soon I stood before the shop. The rook was there. The rook from my dream.

He had always been a rook, but I had never known it. It’s because I hadn’t know how to play chess back then. But I knew now. I knew that we were all part of this game because the world was a chessboard.

Frankly, I knew I should run. Just leave it and go. But I couldn’t let my fear control me. This was my final chance, at least that’s what it felt like. I had already flunked university because of my sick brain, I had fucked up everything else too. My parents had funded this shop. It was the only thing that had worked out in my life. If I ran, without a single rational reason, I would disappoint everyone again. 

I couldn’t do that. That’s why I walked inside the shop, past the rook, feeling like an inmate entering death row. My legs were stiff and the world was unreal.

On the counter were the chess pieces. There were five of them. All of them were standing upright and I recognized them as my army. 

I placed the king next to them and went on with my day. That is, of all things, the most unbelievable part for me. I just acted normal, worked the counter and did not show any of the terror that I felt. Only difference was that I kept glancing at the rook, just to make sure he had not gone anywhere. 

I had no plan. I did not attempt to make one, because I was trying not to believe the danger I was in. I was also certain I would die, because I had no plan to deal with this non-existing danger. You must know by now that my survival was nothing I could take credit for. 

I had just bagged the purchases of a customer and exchanged last pleasantries, when I saw the rook outside the window. He was looking through it at me. I stood very still as the customer left the store and the rook came in instead.

He was very tall. I hadn’t noticed him being so tall when he was out on the street, but now he was inside and had to fold himself almost in half not to hit the ceiling. But what would be uncomfortable for a human, was a comfortable position for the rook.

“My turn,” said the chess piece without emotion.

I had cycled through my options - scream, run, hide - and by accident stopped on fight. So I threw the chess pieces at him. They were bronze and heavy, but they made no dent in him. After all, he was made of bronze too. 

“Stop,” said the rook. “Your turn is over. It’s my turn. Don’t you know the rules?”

I made a noise, half-sob and half-roar, and tried to escape. But there was so much of him and I could not reach the exit. I went further into the shop. As I did, the rook clawed at me with his fingers. They were long and sharp, a dozen of them on a single hand. 

They cut open my shoulder. I screamed. 

“Left,” said the rook. I tried dodging in the opposite direction and was rewarded with piercing pain. 

“Right.” 

I stepped right, breathing heavily and somehow just missed the blow.

“Back.”

Again, I obeyed and was spared the pain.

“Left.”

I was standing in the corner, back against the wall.

“Checkmate,” smiled the rook and stretched out his hands as if to embrace me.

Then I heard a roar. The rook was taken off his feet and soon lay crumpled on the ground under the weight of a man. I was stunned and astonished. I had no idea where this man had come from. Not only that, he was fighting that thing. The rook was metal and inhuman, but this man just punched into him like he was butter. The rook screamed in a shrill metal voice and as the man tore off bastard’s arms. 

I saw the melted bronze dip to the floor right from the edges of the torn arms. By now, the flames were visible and I felt the heat emanating from the man. The rook might have been disarmed, but he was not dead. The burning man struggled to keep him on the ground, as the rook tried to twist himself out and flee. 

But the burning man didn’t let him. He grabbed the statue by the head and  _ folded _ it into his chest. Under the force of the heat, the metal was malleable like clay. As the rook’s body was slowly destroyed, his scream grew quieter and quieter until he was silent.

The fires had caught on to the furniture by now. The floor was twisting under the heat and the smoke it harder to breathe. 

I had babbled something about getting help, about fire, exclaimed terror at the prospect losing my shop. The man had turned around sharply, shock written in face. It was as if he hadn’t known I was there.

He asked about the fire extinguisher. I pointed into the closet, the door to which was also beginning to smoulder. He repeated the question again, angrier and I noticed finally that one of his glasses was broken. There were scars where his eye should be. 

That’s why I ran into the closet myself, figured out despite the panic how to use the fire extinguisher and together with the man managed to save my shop. At some point, I told him to call the fire department, but he had absolutely refused to get the authorities involved. I was not going to argue with my saviour and besides, the flames were not as bad as they had seemed and we soon had it under control.

After the emergency was over, we were both at a loss what to do. The burning man, who was longer visibly burning, had muttered something about leaving and I had stopped him. I put up the closed sign and made him tea. I chattered about something the entire time and thanked him again and again. My hands were shaking pretty bad when I brought him the mug.

I think he must have realized by then, that him staying here was more for my sake than his own. He was a gentleman about it, made small talk when prompted. We actually talked about the weather! I then started telling about the weird statue, how he had shown up here and the burning man interjected:

“Are there more of them?”

I told no, it was probably the only one. He nodded at that. 

“I don’t need to know the rest,” he said. “It doesn’t help to know.”

So I didn’t tell him anything else. I just asked him to melt the other chess pieces as well, the ones the rook had gifted to me and others. The burning man did so without any trouble. 

Even when you didn’t see the flames come out of him, you felt something emanate from him. It wasn’t as much heat, as much anger. Whenever he forgot himself, his posture grew tense, like he was pissed off. He was like a constantly smouldering fire, waiting for a strong wind to reignite the inferno in him.

I gave him my eyeglasses before he left. They were a feminine model, but his old ones were busted and mine had dark glasses that would obstruct his scars.

I asked him how he found me and how he knew something was wrong. By now I was pretty sure he was the guy from the tube. 

He shrugged and said:

“I sensed that there was kindling to burn.”

He left out the door, picking up his cane from the pavement outside. Then the burning man halted for a moment and turned to me to say:

“Do me a favour, by the way. Don’t go to the fucking Magnus Institute, alright?”

I nodded in confusion, because I had no idea what the Magnus Institute was. Then I remembered that he couldn’t see my nod and repeated my assent. 

I watched for a while after the burning man, who felt out the way ahead with the blind man’s stick. I was immediately full of regrets, thought of excuses to call him back. I wasn’t done with that story. The story wasn’t done with me.

A day later, I googled what the Magnus Institute was. A few more weeks, I had decided that a letter would not count as breaking that promise. Then a few more months later, I was done with this letter. 

I don’t know if you will believe me. I don’t know if these chess pieces or the burning man means anything to. But I would like to forget all of this, so that it becomes your problem instead of mine.

My shop, in case you wonder, is doing just fine. I set up the molten bronze carcass as decoration, because it was far too heavy to remove. I think the singe marks add something to the flair and overall, I have gotten quite lucky to have escaped with my shop and my life intact. 

With regards,

Your Mysterious Unlucky Shop Lady with a Distaste for Chess

(A handwritten note is underneath.)

Could you burn my letter after you are done? I would like to think that it would make the burning man happy. 

***

“Supplemental. The burning man will have to stay decidedly unhappy because I don’t think I will be fulfilling that request. There are leads that could be followed up here, but without a name it becomes a much harder task. The large number of hipster shops in London would make the process of elimination a bloody chore and I see no one around volunteering for this job.”

“Besides, I don’t think that sending out Baseira is wise _ or _ safe. We are under siege, after all. The case does not seem to be urgent anymore either - the manifestation, of what I am sure, is the Stranger, was handily defeated by an Avatar of the Desolation.”

“It’s curious. I have not seen many cases, where avatars were actively fighting other powers unless they were disrupting an active ritual. Neither does the Cult of the Lightless Flame seem all that keen on vigilantism… particularly they would not show any interest minimizing the suffering around them. But the burning man’s actions are the very opposite of that.”

The voice tapers off. 

“I wonder who it is. I somehow think that I…”

The sound of a falling pen and a muffled groan. There is heavy breathing, that eventually evens out.

“End Supplemental.”

Jon turned off the tape. Straightened the letter, that he had accidentally crumpled in his hand when the insight had come over him. By now, Jon knew who the burning man was. 

He just wasn’t sure whether that knowledge belonged on tape. 


End file.
